Home Away From Home

Dear Friends, Family and Colleagues:

I just want to wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. I still can’t believe I have already been here 3 months, but they are the most productive and memorable of the year 2010. As you may know, I am serving as an IT Adviser to Dire Dawa University in Ethiopia, and although the work is challenging, I have found there is a lot of gratification in getting up every morning and working to truly and passionately make a difference and feeling your contribution is one that is much deeded and appreciated.

Ethiopia is in a time of great transformation and this period is one every Ethiopian at home and abroad want to be part of. Imagine this, there are currently 13 Universities being built across all regions of Ethiopia and all of them are in dire needs of human resources (teachers and professionals) to deliver their mission to the equally dire and desperate young Ethiopians. Dire Dawa University, where I am currently working, is one of these Universities. For those of you who graduated from Colleges and Universities in the last 3 years, Imagine you being the most experienced teaching faculty and often the head and dean of Departments in a University? Imagine, a University campus where student registration is done manually, where you can’t search for books digitally, you can’t access internet to do your work and research….?  well, imagine me being the sole responsible person for the establishment of an entire IT department for a whole University campus? Imagine, this in 13 different Universities in Ethiopia where those are the only and few Universities the average middle and lower class Ethiopian can get the basic University Education.

You see, the Ethiopia government is investing a loooot of Money on these Universities and trust me this Universities have lots and lots of Technologies…but what they really need is skilled, experienced and professional human resources? It makes total sense too….where can you get those unless you have had the institutions to produce these educated elites in the last 10 years? We know this has not been the case in Ethiopia.

I told a few friends a few days ago that if an individual or organization abroad contacts me to offer thousands of Computers to the University, I will refuse the offer in a heart bit and ask for equivalent contribution of skilled and experienced people. The lack of technologies and material resources is there, but what is much needed is the human resources to enable those technologies to fulfill their full potential.

Anyways, I hope this inspires you to visit and find ways to contribute to the transformation of Ethiopia, especially for this whole call this country home. You may certainly ask me how you can support my work here….I may even be able to arrange for you a 3-6 month visit/work if you are able to do so…

Happy New Year!

Files from Home in Dire

Last week, I accompanied my grandmother to a Kulubi Gebriel, a historical church located in a small town about 49km from Dire Dawa called Kulubi. The church is located on a hilltop about 2.5km from the center of the town and the main road from Dire Dawa to Addis Ababa. On 26 July and 28 December, the days dedicated to Saint Gabriel, more than 100, 000 Ethiopians from all over the country descend on the church, a festive religious occasion and certainly a historical event to witness. We arrived at the Church in an early evening on Monday , where my grandmother spent the afternoon praying, giving the gifts she brought with her from Addis Ababa to the monitory and giving out money to the needy. I, along with two friends, spent the afternoon wondering around the compound of the church and the small town. Of course, we treated ourselves with an awesome Tibse and raw meat.This is a religious pilgrimage many across Ethiopia make, often making many personal sacrifices, including walking the 49km from Dire Dawa by foot, spending the night praying on the church compound, fasting the two days, and giving gifts of various value, including an Oxen, goats,sheep, gold, candles and the like...



We spend the night in a tent that was setup by Ethiopian Electric Power workers. While my two friends slept in a car (I had rented a car in Dire Dawa for 400 birr/$25 USD a day), I slept next to my grandmother only wearing gabi (cotton blanket) in a shivering high altitude cold. The next morning, the day of St. Gabriel, we got up at 4am for prayer, chanting and candle lighting ceremony. The Tabot came out of the church at around 5am; we only heard this as we did not get to see it, but this is similar and colorful ceremony as the one in Gonder. The rest of the morning was spent praying and listening to Sermons. We headed back to Dire-Dawa around 11am and arrived there after 4 hours, a good part of it spent in the town of Kulubi stuck in a car and 100, 000 human traffic. For me, this was awesome to see such a colorful celebration that has ancient roots; the church itself is claims to be build by Ras Degen Mekonnen, father of Haile Selassie, in 1896. The King built it after the victory of Adawa, which the King said it was an answer to a prayer request during his previous visit what was before a small Shrine on the top of the when the church is currently built.

Just a day before on Sat Dec 25th Christmas Day, I spent the afternoon wondering around Harar for a few hours (It was my first day in Harar and didn't really see much) and celebrated Christmas with VSO and Haramaya University friends. Gary, a VSO volunteer from Ireland, had found a tall and leafless tree somewhere on campus had placed it in his house as a Christmas tree. We, about 17 of us, most are faculty of Law at Haramaya, had brought gifts to put under the tree. We then put numbers on each gift and picked a number randomly. My gift was #17, a Coffee Bug! Interestingly, two of the other Ferengy at the party where UW Law School Alumni. One is actually the Dean of the Law school at Haramaya University. They, along one other Habesha and Dutch, are hired by the University directly as contractors. Another sign of a lack of human resources in Ethiopia.... I guess it is a small world...

Harama University, for those that are not familiar is an old established University in Ethiopia, perhaps considered the Harvard of Ethiopia? It has been around for over 50 or so years and had produced many famous Ethiopian academicians. The campus is located about 5km from a Haramaya town and there is literally nothing else on and off campus. The University itself is a small town in the woods and In fact, Hyenas are seen wondering around like dogs on campus and around student and staff dormitories. The campus is generally impressive compare to Dire Dawa, especially given the fact that over half of the Dire Dawa campus is still under serious construction, the campus is literally a desert camp full of dust and construction vehicles that blow off the dust on student, staff and building like it is nothing...

I think this is would be my last 2010 update from Dire. In the next few weeks, I expect I will be traveling to Bale (Southern Ethiopia) to celebrate Gena with some relatives. I might also be on a North tour, visiting Universities in Gonder, Axus, Desse with Department Deans and staff. What a wonderful way to start a new year....isn't it? If I don't check-in again, Happy New Year. I hope the new year is brings success (however you define it), happiness and new adventures to your life and let me remind you that it is you and only you that are in control for the things that ought and can happen to your Life. In other words, any situation that you think is holding you from achieving what you really really desire to be doing, it transformable. You just have to change how it occurs to you....Confused? Read "The Three Laws of Performance", by Stave Zaffron and Dave Logan.

Filed From Home in Dire.

Three months into my 1 year tenure at Dire Dawa University as VSO International Volunteer, I have to say I am having a rare opportunity and the best personal and professional experience .  My role at Dire Dawa University is to serve as an ICT (Information Communication Technology) adviser for the University leadership to ensure the establishment of an IT Department and introduction ion of campus wide ICT services.  Being one of the recently opened Universities (Dire Dawa was opened in 2007), Dire Dawa University is still in the process of being established as a fully functional University although it is currently serving about 7000 students across 5 schools; Social Science, Natural Science, Business and Economics, Institute of Technology and Law.

So far, I have been primary involved in building the servers, and the physical networks to enabled for the introduction of ICT services to the whole university.  The University had invested on a high-speed wireless technology that can network the entire campus wireless and I am involved on all aspect of implementing this network, including the proper construction of the antenna on top of the Technology building, where the Wireless Access Points will be mounted . Although we currently only have 512kbp internet connection, we are starting the process to get a fiber-optic high-speed broadband connection. This is easy said that done as dealing with Ethiopian Telecommunication (the main and only and government owned Internet Provider in Ethiopia) itself requires patience and persistence. 

Part of my job is to serve all the Academic, Administration and Student service offices by establishing and introducing ICT services so that their work and services are supported by technology. The Academics are the schools and departments that are in desperate need for a reliable ICT service for learning, teaching and research. This means having the computer labs for students and teachers as well as the education and training for the proper utilization of these resources, such as internet connections, software tools, etc. I have had to guest lecture an 3rd year Computer Science course and it is not a bit exaggeration to say that the average high school senior in US is more computer literate than these 3rd year Computer Science students.
To put this into context, the students came across all over Ethiopia, from cities and towns often with no prior exposure to computer and computer concepts during their secondary education. Plus, the lack of ICT facilities, there is only 1 General Access student lab for the entire campus, make it difficult for students to get an opportunity for more exposure to computers and computer concepts outside of lecture and labs. One must also mention the qualification and quality of the instructors, all of them not any older than myself and with no prior teaching and working experience. Let me put it this way, the 3rd year Computer Science students that I have just told you about, it is likely that they will be placed somewhere else as University instructors when they graduate next year. Yes, there is such a desperate lack of Human Resources.  As a diaspora living in abroad, does this NOT make you came and give back?  I have to tell you, although they are a whole lot that makes it difficult to fully contribute your experience and skills, there is much much gratification to have the opportunity to try do so…

The Administration offices are all the offices are responsible for the proper management of the University, such as having the proper software tools for enrolling students and keeping student records, asset management software for tracking University assets (Computers, projectors, printers, staff…etc). Those with Management Information System (MIS) background and in project management can relate to this. I have not done much work on this respect yet except to be involved in some aspect of making sure proper computer and technology tools are being purchased by the University and the vendors are delivering the expected specification of computers, printers, etc. This is such a difficult task since no one in Finance and at the University warehouse can tell weather a newly purchased printer, laptop and computer has the correct memory, hard disk and other essential specification. The task of distributing to end users (staff, etc), managing, maintain and tracking is also a big challenge. Just last week, I have had to tell a Hardware vendor from Addis to take back all the printers he delivered; the Finance department had purchased 20 large 2 tray prints, but the 20 printers delivered where simple black and white HP printers with only 1 tray-150 paper capacity.  As it is too common here, I was offered a 1000 birr bribe and accept the delivery. Although the Ethiopian government had put in place a sophisticated process to eliminate corruption, this still seems an issue that is not going to go away so soon and easily. To purchase ICT equipment, for example, the University bid Committee is required to announce a public bid to give every business (small and big) an opportunity to complete for the business and follow a defined selection process that often takes weeks. This is great since not a single individual can decide where to purchase equipment (hence avoiding favoritism and monopoly), but the process is long and often tedious. From a personal experience, for example, I have had to wait 4 weeks for a simple construction materials (for the wireless antenna) that costs about 2000 birr. Consequently, I am forced to wait over 2 months for the construction of 1 2000 birr pole to implement a half a million networking equipment. It seems a laughing matter, doesn’t it?

Student services include Libraries , dormitories, etc. For example, I have been involved on acquiring an e-library software and collection for the library so that students can access books online since there is basically no books at the library. The library also does not have any software for cataloging, checking out, and loaning books; everything is a manual process. Even students have to literally browse library book shelves to find available books. It is not only my job to identifying the software tools to be used for such purposes, but also to establish the physical and virtual network s (eg: building servers, laying out cables, etc) to allow for such tools to be used across the three libraries. Currently, I have fixed a simple PHP based application that allows students to access a random collection of PDF e-books, journals that were downloaded from the web by students and library staff. I have put about 20GB of PDF files on the web server and student can use a simple searching tool to search by titles, authors and departments. You see, the task of developing the application is simple but the challenge is cataloging the books with the proper tags (name, title, author, subject,  department, etc) so that students can find what they are looking for easily.

On top of these and most importantly, my job is to establish the ICT department and the job structure so that all of these services can be supported and sustained in the future. Currently, there is only two of us that are considered ICT staff and are trying to introduce all these services to the University. This itself is a challenge since the University does not have the budget to hire ICT staff, it seems they are still waiting for the budget to be release from Ministry of Education. To give some ideas, a System Admin with a reasonable experience can be hired for a monthly salary of about 2000 birr (about $125 with the current exchange rate ($1=16 birr). So, the annual salary turns out to be about only $2000/ 32000 birr? Anyone got a $2000 birr to spare? I can use it to pay for an ICT staff for a whole year!

Filed from my House in Dire Dawa